Iso-Touru, Terhi
Wurmser, Christine
Venhoranta, Heli
Hiltpold, Maya
Savolainen, Tujia
Sironen, Anu
Fischer, Konrad
Flisikowski, Krzysztof
Fries, Ruedi
Vicente-Carrillo, Alejandro
Alvarez-Rodriguez, Manuel
Nagy, Szabolcs
Mutikainen, Mervi
Peippo, Jaana
Taponen, Juhani
Sahana, Goutam
Guldbrandtsen, Bernt
Simonen, Henri
Rodriguez-Martinez, Heriberto
Andersson, Magnus
Pausch, Hubert http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0501-6760
Article History
Received: 30 November 2018
Accepted: 20 March 2019
First Online: 11 April 2019
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: Ejaculates of two asthenospermic bulls were collected by employees of an AI center in Finland as part of their routine practice under veterinary supervision. Both bulls were eventually culled because their impaired sperm motility precluded the use of the collected ejaculates for artificial inseminations. The decision to cull the bulls was at the sole discretion of representatives of the AI center. Testicular tissue was collected immediately after slaughter. Oocytes used for <i>in vitro</i> fertilization experiments were collected from offal cow ovaries at a commercial slaughterhouse. No animal experiments were performed in this study, and, therefore, approval from an ethics committee was not required.
: Two asthenospermic bulls were owned by an AI center (Viking Genetics). Consent to participate in the study and publication of the results was provided by Søren Borchersen (Head of R&D of Viking Genetics) and HS who is also co-author of the manuscript.
: HP is member of the editorial board of BMC Genomics. HS is an employee of the AI center Viking Genetics. All other authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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